The Keening Blade

Chapter 24: I Saw Something Nasty in the Blackmarsh

Sigrun was now a Warden. Loghain admitted to himself that he would have regretted it had the cheerful dwarf girl died in the Joining.

But she had not. She had survived, and was given her own quarters at the Vigil. Sigrun was a little bewildered by the size of them, as she never in her life had had a room of her own. She was unused to privacy in a larger sense. Perhaps that was what made her so gregarious.

However, getting her to ride a horse proved impossible at the moment. To Loghain's surprise—and Maude's as well—she was not as easily manipulated as Oghren. She knew what she wanted and what she liked and what she had no desire to do. She had no desire whatever to perch high up off the ground on the back of an enormous and unpredictable beast.

"And I like riding in the wagon," she told Maude. "That's fun. I wouldn't mind learning to drive a team. Don't you think that driving a team could be useful?"

Maude assured it that it could be, indeed. They were taking a wagon with them on their current adventure, and Sigrun sat on the wagon seat with Bodahn Feddic, learning to drive oxen.

They could not put off going to the Blackmarsh. It was the only other place in Amaranthine from which had come a report of those damnable "worms with legs." After studying the maps of the arling, they had marked the sites of abandoned castles or manors, remembering what The Lost had said about a tower. There was such a ruin in the Blackmarsh. It was entirely possible that they would find the lair of The Mother there, in that forsaken spot.

And there was their lost Warden to consider. Loghain suspected that Kristoff was dead, if he had blundered into a nest of those grub-like darkspawn. Nonetheless, he was a Warden, and was owed something. Also, if there were more of those new darkspawn there, it was likely there was some sort of Broodmother, even if not The Mother herself. They must go, and they must go soon.

Topaz never left Loghain's side, trying pitifully to please him, trying to show how indispensable and adorable she was. Loghain privately resolved that if Maude wanted puppies, she could just buy a breeding pair of mabaris with their gold. Topaz wanted to be with them, and he wanted her to be there, and that was that. The two dogs were trotting happily beside their horses, nosing and sniffing.

With them, if only for part of the way, was Nathaniel Howe. He had gathered his men and rounded up some local militia, determined to see a large caravan of traders and travelers safely on its way to Denerim. Once there, the plan was for him to collect the traders wanting to go the other way, and escort them at least as far as the Vigil. He had brought a few scouts, but they would not stray far from the road. The point was to keep trade flowing. They traveled together until the sun was high in the sky, and the road branched. Nathaniel saluted Loghain with grave respect, and then turned his head away, scowling, at the sight of Maude's lovely smile.

"Oh, well," Maude shrugged, cocking her head to look at his retreating back. "He'll come around,"

"—Or not," Loghain grunted.

"Heh," Oghren grinned. "She's wiped the floor with better men than him. Better darkspawn, too. Just a matter of time."

"I don't want to see any more of her floor wiping," Anders remarked.

"Yes, you would, if 'twere a human," Morrigan assured him. "'Tis most diverting. Let me tell you a story about a King of Ferelden whom she uses as a mop…"

They stationed their guardsman and the wagon at the base camp they set up about a quarter mile from the beginning of the Blackmarsh. It was a gloomy place already: mist rising from soggy, unwholesome earth. If it was always this gloomy, it would be wise to wait until well past daybreak tomorrow to begin their explorations.

The dogs came with them, clearly enjoying the outing, if not the surroundings. Fog hung heavy in the air, darkening the sky. From the feeble, leafless scrub to the straggling weeds, to the fetid smell of the marsh around them, the Blackmarsh seemed a land where the sun never shone, and nothing wholesome could live.

"Nasty place," Anders muttered.

Maude laughed. "You just reminded me of my Great-Aunt Ada Darkling. Utterly appalling old hag. She ruled the roost at her family manor for years, pretending to be mad—"

Loghain snorted. He had heard of the woman.

Maude amended that. "—Well, madder than she really was. Whenever anyone contradicted her, or asked for coin, or wanted to get married, or did anything she disapproved of, she'd throw a fit, and rave about how when she was five years old she 'saw something nasty in the woodshed!' Mother couldn't abide her. When Great-Aunt Ada tried tell mother about seeing something nasty in the woodshed, Mother came right back with, 'Yes, but did it see you?' And then great-Aunt Ada tried to hit Mother with volume two of the Chronicles of Calenhad, and Mother snatched it away and thumped her over the head with it, and Father dragged me away so I didn't see what happened next, which is too bad really..."

Ranger growled.

Maude broke off her story, suddenly alert. "Not darkspawn...but—"

Huge, ungainly figures burst out of the fog, loping at them with alarming speed.

"Werewolves!" Morrigan snapped. "Do not let them drool or bleed upon you!" And with that she cursed two in their tracks.

Loghain froze briefly in disbelief. Maude had once babbled about werewolves, but he had not been listening carefully enough, apparently. Werewolves were supposed to have been eradicated ages ago. That these were werewolves, however, became all too apparent as they attacked him, clawing and snarling. These were certainly not real wolves, but some grotesque blending of man and beast. They bled freely enough, at any rate. The Wardens hacked at them, and the dogs leaped for legs and worried at exposed throats...

"Werewolves aren't so bad," Maude remarked, wiping her sword afterward. "They're pretty strong and these were Blighted, but nobody could reasonably describe them as cunning."

"They're Blighted, all right." Oghren stared down at the mangled corpse of one of the creatures, and grunted. "If they're Blighted, then Blight's been here, and that means darkspawn. They're nearby, all right."

Loghain nodded, sensing the same thing. They moved deeper into the mist, finding the crumbling ruins of a village. This place had been called Blackmarsh, too: Blackmarsh-by-the-Sea. It was on all the old maps, and had once been a fairly good-sized village. Whatever catastrophe had destroyed it, had destroyed it long ago. On the prowl for possible loot, Maude found the remains of the village records, and thumbed through them briefly.

Blackmarsh's last overlord was the Orlesian baroness Ghislaine de Retz. Hints in the records led Maude—with the concordance of Morrigan and Anders—to believe that she had been a mage.

"Which begs the question: why was she not in the Orlesian Circle?" Morrigan wondered, scorn on her lips.

"Noble." Maude answered, still leafing through the records. "Orlesian nobles are not like other Orlesians. For all their going on about the Chantry, Orlesian nobles do not feel it necessary to be bound by the laws governing lesser folk. My father said it was pretty well known that that certain nobles were secret mages. The families send for mage tutors to learn to control themselves, so nobles simply never used their magic where anyone important could see them. Father said that for them it would be like eating with the wrong fork." She looked askance at Oghren, and said loudly, "or like picking your nose in public. Thank you. It's probably where Arlessa Isolde got the idea that she could do that in Ferelden. We're so primitive we take laws seriously. Sometimes." She grinned to herself.

"Something happened here," Loghain said, studying the ruins. "Whatever happened here, happened in Blessed 92. These building should not have decayed so much in forty years." He strode over to the walled enclosure in the center of the village. "This was the manor house. It was clearly destroyed by fire. Maybe the villagers rose up against her."

"And she defended herself with magic?" Anders considered. "Maybe. If she were in mortal danger, she might have had an involuntary explosion of magic. Still, I don't see how that could have killed everyone."

"Unless, of course," Morrigan pointed out, "the explosion was not involuntary. Out here, far from her peers, alone among those she would have regarded as savages, perhaps she saw no reason to be…discreet?"

Maude agreed. "I think you're on to something!"

They moved through the town. Maude plucked something from the ground: a child's toy, its faded paint still oddly cheerful. She presented it to Oghren with a flourish.

"You told me once that you wanted a pony," she smirked.

The dwarf guffawed, pleased that she had remembered something that he had undoubtedly said in a drunken stupor, and mumbled something about giving it "to the kid."

Beyond the village, the landscape grew even wilder. They found odd things: a ritual stone circle, fragments of dragon bone, valuables cast into the muck of the marsh.

Anders and Morrigan moved off by themselves, finding a place where the air was unnaturally cold. They conferred briefly and quietly, and then nodded.

"The Veil has been torn here," Morrigan declared gravely. "And not only once. Something very powerful was here. Traces may remain. We must be on our guard."

And so they were, moving cautiously over the quaking, sodden earth. The dogs were skilled at finding safe paths, but did not like this place. Loghain looked at his other companions, and they clearly agreed.

"Darkspawn," Maude murmured. "I don't sense a great many, but there are definitely darkspawn here. It's odd: I didn't sense them around the manor at all. Could there be something else out here?"

From a leather bag, Loghain pulled out some items belonging to Kristoff: a towel, and an unwashed sock, found in his room at the Vigil. The scent must be weak by now, but Loghain had great faith in mabari tracking skills. The dogs 'whuffed,' and then moved north, trotting a little faster.

"Would it help for you to take bird form?" Loghain asked Morrigan.

She shook her head. "'Twould be useless. The fog is too thick, especially near the ground. I am better off as I am, able to cast spells."

They found Kristoff's campsite: the tent neatly pitched, the cot properly made. No human had been there in many days. The dogs sniffed about, and then moved eastward. The sensation of darkspawn became urgent and irritating. Around a bend they were set upon by the bizarre new grub-like darkspawn: a few of them only, the eggs scattered about the rocks in a random fashion.

Around the next bend, they found Kristoff.

Ranger drew back with a sharp yip, and then growled. The body in armor lay where the man had been killed, obviously some days ago, from the odor.

"They're here," Maude whispered to Loghain. "They're watching us. Why, I wonder?"

They could stay where they were forever, or they could get on with it. Maude saw no traps or tripwires, and she and the dogs walked over to Kristoff's corpse, and were joined by the rest of the party. They stood in a rough circle, backs to each other.

"Yes, that is your Grey Warden," rumbled a hoarse voice. A big darkspawn leaped out of the fog from a little embankment, and advanced on them. "The Mother, she said that if he were killed and left here, others would come: and she was right. The Mother is always right."

"Yes," Maude agreed instantly. "The Mother is frightfully clever. Who are you?"

"I am The First," the darkspawn replied, very satisfied with itself. "I am highest among those who serve the Mother. She has sent me with a message for the Grey Warden."

Before Maude could exercise her wiles on the creature, it raised its hands, and there was an explosion of light, a sensation of being squeezed though a sieve, and the Wardens were buffetted by a whirwind of magic. The dogs bayed and howled, and almost instantly the fog was gone, and they were all in a new, sunlit world.

But no world Loghain knew. The light was too bright: unnaturally so. Objects blurred at their edges. He clutched at his sword, and then blinked again. The Keening Blade was glowing blue in his hand. Maude's sword was glowing as well, but a hot red, rippling with tiny tongues of flame. He looked about him, unnerved. The dwarves were equally bewildered, but Maude much less so. Morrigan and Anders were glowing faintly themselves.

"Crap!" Maude complained. "We're in the Fade again. Whose brilliant idea was this?"

"Not alone," sneered Morrigan. "It looks like our talking darkspawn was far from 'the First' in his class!"

Sure enough, there was the First and a handful minions, all looking equally baffled by their surroundings. Anders sniggered.

"I am betrayed!" The First raged. "Ah! I have been a fool! The Mother has deceived me!"

Maude opened her mouth, and Loghain clapped a hand over it. He absolutely refused to listen to her try to charm yet another of these monstrosities. The First scampered heavily down a path and vanished, leaving the rest of the darkspawn to cover his retreat and be summarily killed by the Wardens. It did not take them long, but The First was out of sight by the time the fight was over.

"It was a trick!" Maude cried, surprised and almost amused. "It really was just a trick. This little band of darkspawn was detailed out here—the worm eggs, too-probably as far as possible from the Mother, to create a diversion! That's why we sensed so few of them, and nothing at all by the deserted mansion. They led Kristoff out here and killed him, and waited for more Wardens to come looking for him. And aren't the darkspawn becoming civilized! First, the Mother comes up with the idea of creating the diversion, and then she sends that fellow The First out, not only to command the patrol, but to get him killed. He must have been getting too big for his britches."

"Right," Anders snarked. "Really civilized."

"I could have told him," Morrigan said, very irritated, "When he was casting that spell, that it would go wrong. So here he is in the Fade with us—somewhere. We will need a very powerful magical source to help us escape. There is a demon at the heart of this."

"Just like that time at the Circle," Maude agreed cheerfully. "That was really interesting. You lads weren't along for that, so I'll tell you, so you feel better about our chances of escaping this place."

"Soon would be good," Oghren grunted, eyeing the warped dreamscape queasily. "This isn't...right!"

"Is this what normal dreams are like?" asked Sigrun. "They're not very nice, are they?"

"Well," Maude began, "the Fade is a strange place, but it varies from person to person. When you're dragged in against your will, the way we were, it's shaped quite a bit by the mind of the demon in charge at the time. When we were rescuing the Tower of Mages from itself, we were trapped by a Sloth Demon, and it locked each of us away in separate bizarre Fade-worlds. I suppose the demon was trying to lull us into complacency, but it was an idiot, like most demons are, really. It sent me to a Fade version of Weisshaupt, as if that was any place I would actually want to see. All it did was convince me that Weisshaupt is horrible, and that I'm never going there. Mind you, I have no idea if what it showed me was anything like the real Weisshaupt or not. It was a huge, empty marble hall. It was ugly and boring, and then a pathetic imitation of Duncan greeted me."

"Did he actually look like Duncan?" Loghain wondered.

"Sort of. Sounded like him too, only I saw at once it was a fake, because he was all 'yay, we destroyed all the Archdemons forever and we'll sing songs and rest on our laurels until the end of time.' Which was just ridiculous, not only if you knew Duncan, but any actual human being ever. So I killed him."

"—And took his stuff," Loghain murmured.

Maude had heard him, and shook her head. "No stuff. There was no stuff on anybody when I was in the Fade. It was sickening. That's how I was able to remember it was all just a bad dream."

"Bad dream or no," Morrigan reproved her. "'Tis essential to remember that if you die in the Fade, you die indeed. Furthermore, we must return to our bodies as quickly as possible, as they are lying helpless in a marsh frequented by wolves."

"Ewww!" Sigrun said, utterly horrified. "That's…ewww. Whatever we have to kill, let's kill it right now!"

"You and me both, nuglet." Oghren agreed.

They moved along warily. Up ahead, magic coalesced, spinning in lazy whorls.

"The tears in the Veil," Anders said, pointing. "We can close them from this side. In fact, it improves our chances of getting out. We can't escape through a tear without drawing a lot of demons with us. We need to squeeze out right through the surface of the Veil itself."

"Right, then," Loghain said, trying not to be distracted by the bright blue glowing sword in his hand.

They wandered the dreamscape, finding the three tears and each time destroying the scantily-clad demons disporting themselves there.

"Demonettes," Maude called them scornfully: much like the Desire Demons Loghain had seen, but not nearly as powerful. As they moved along, the sun, already burning, grew brighter still, and they neared a strange vision of a charming seaside village. This then, was Blackmarsh Village as it once was, perhaps…

Sigrun whispered, "Maude, how did you get out of the Fade that time?"

"I had to go through a maze of Fadeworlds and I don't have time to describe them all to you, except say they were based mostly on the fears and nightmares of mages and Templars. There was one, though, that was rotten with darkspawn and had an ogre at the end. It was tough. There was this dreamy space at the center of it all, and I found a mage there, who had tried to escape and failed. Nice fellow. His name was Niall, and he told me—"

"—Niall?" Anders interrupted. "I know—knew Niall. He was a good friend of mine. He was an Isolationist—he thought all mages should go away and live on an island together."

"Well," Maude said grimly, "he ended up isolated on an island in the Fade. He had been there too long to survive when we destroyed the demon, but he told me what I needed to do to fight Uldred. I felt badly that I couldn't save him. Anyway, I also had to go around and wake up all my friends. Morrigan knew she was in the Fade at least…"

Morrigan snorted in contempt. "I agree with Maude's assessment of the stupidity of demons. The creature had marooned me with a simulacrum of Flemeth, who was behaving in most laughably maternal way!"

"So we killed her, and then Morrigan vanished…"

"No, 'twas you who vanished…"

"What was the little pike-twirler dreaming about?" Oghren asked.

Maude laughed. "He thought he was with his sister, that Goldanna person and her children. He invited me to supper. He was goofily happy at being surrounded by family, and when I told them they were demons, he told me I was acting really strange…"

Loghain shook his head, picturing it.

"...And darling Ranger knew he was in the Fade and just took a nap, so he was fine…"

Ranger gave himself a proud shake, and sat down to scratch his ear. Clearly, any place was fine with him as long as his person was there.

"Sten knew it was a dream, and Leliana wasn't that hard to rouse, since all she was doing was praying with a demon priest beside her, and that looked fairly boring. The tricky one was Wynne. For a moment, I really thought she would turn on me and fight. She was consumed by guilt, surrounded by dead apprentices—who were all elves, by the way. Morrigan, you remember what we found out at the Dalish camp about that!"

Morrigan told the rest, glad for the opportunity to malign Wynne. "In her youth, she had been even more of an insufferable shrew, and had tormented a young elven apprentice under her care until the boy fled the Tower. Naturally, the Templars went in pursuit, and the old woman had for years carried the burden of having hounded him to his death. We discovered that he was not dead, however. The Templars had attacked him, and left him for dead, and the boy eventually was saved and healed by the Dalish."

Maude broke in. "…And then Wynne actually had the gall to urge him to return to the Tower! As if the Templars wouldn't have slaughtered him on the spot! Told him it was his 'duty!'"

"Can we please talk about this later?" Oghren pleaded. "One of those wolves might be molesting me while you tell stories!"

Repentant, Maude hurried on to the end, "So once we were together, we killed the Sloth Demon, and there we were—out of the Fade!" She and the dogs trotted ahead to scout out the strange Fade-village. Peculiar scenes of past life were played out before them, and it took little to piece together the obvious fact that the Baroness had been a cruel mistress.

"So the village of Blackmarsh still lives," Morrigan observed, "but only in the Fade. Interesting..."

Along the way, a Hunger Demon tried to lure them to their doom, disguised as a young girl. It was a laughable attempt, and the demon was put down without delay. They hurried through tunnels of living dead, and suddenly popped out into the middle of Blackmarsh-by-the-Sea—now full of angry and rebellious people. Within minutes, they understood what had happened.

They were first accosted by a guardsman—not a hostile one. He asked who they were, and when Loghain told him they were Grey Wardens, and trapped here, the man shook his head.

"Then you are just as we are. Trapped in this endless nightmare. And yet—there is a spirit here, come to free us! Perhaps you could help him."

They learned more of the situation. The Baroness had been stealing children, apparently to use them in magical rituals. Loghain was unsurprised. Of course she was evil. Of course she sucked the blood from innocent Fereldan children. Of course she had to be killed. She was Orlesian, after all. She was a Blood Mage as well, but some Fereldan blood mages were all right. Avernus had died for his country, after all. No, that the Baroness was Orlesian was at the heart of her evil.

And she had trapped this entire village in the Fade with her, as a final act of revenge, when they rose against her and very properly burned her manor around her ears.

By the time they reached the manor gates, where angry villagers were massing once more to fight for freedom, Loghain was furious enough to take on the Baroness single-handed.

Instead, he found an ally. An entity of some sort, glowing blue, and clad in full armor, was denouncing the Baroness in front of the courtyard gates.

"The Mansion will not protect you, fiend! Come out and face the penalty for your crimes!" The being turned and challenged them. "And who are you? More minions of the Baroness? Or more helpless souls?"

"Neither!" Maude declared stoutly. "We're nobody's minions, and we're certainly not helpless!"

"We are Grey Wardens," Loghain said, "brought here against our will."

The glowing entity shook its head. "I know not what a Grey Warden is, but you seem able folk. I am Justice. Long have I watched these people's sufferings and seethed over their wrongs. Will you join with these people against their oppressor?"

Anders cleared his throat, "Didn't we come to the conclusion that she's a mean, scary witch? Do we really want to antagonize her?"

Morrigan rolled her eyes. "The only mean, scary witch you need fear antagonizing is me. We should confront this Baroness, and force her to use her magic to send us through the Veil."

"Sounds like a plan," Maude agreed.

Loghain had no reservations whatever about attacking an Orlesian usurper. "We'll stand with you," he told Justice.

"Then there will never be a better time!" Justice shouted through the locked gates. "Come out and submit yourself to Justice!"

"No Orlesian knows what Justice is!" Loghain growled.

"Then we shall teach her!" the spirit answered.

Good enough. Together, they kicked in the gate. Believing he could do it was all that the Fade required, it seemed. The courtyard was broad and real enough, all but the edges, which seemed somehow…unfinished. And at the far end…

She was almost exactly what he expected. Perhaps he had not expected the demons…wraiths…whatever…to come with her, but she was exactly the arrogant, inbred, painted tart his imagination had created. To be sure, he hadn't expected her to wear Tevinter mage's robes along with a tiara, but perhaps his imagination was too limited, when addressing the iniquities of Orlesians.

The townsfolk poured in after them, crying out against the Baroness for her crimes. The Baroness—or whatever the woman now was—was unmoved by such recitations.

"It was my right!" she sneered. "Your children's lives and blood were mine by right—as were yours. You lived on my land, and owed me service: I, your rightful ruler! And what about your crimes? You burned down my mansion with me inside it!"

"That sounds like Justice to me!" Loghain shot back. "'Rightful ruler?' No Orlesian witch is a rightful ruler in Ferelden!"

"These innocent people are no longer alone, Baroness!" declared Justice. "Your crimes end today!"

"As it happens," the sorceress scoffed, "I am not alone, either."

Out of the doorway, The Lost emerged, looking as smug as something without much more than a skull for a face could manage.

"You should be killing them now," it rumbled. "The Grey Warden, it is more dangerous than you imagine. They must die, and you will be sending me back through the Veil for my reward."

"The First, once again, is the First to run to a female for help!" Maude jeered. "You should choose your pets more wisely, Baroness!"

The First snarled at her, and plunged into combat. It was a madness of wraiths and demons and the powerful darkspawn leader. The shades of the townsfolk did not shrink from combat, either, but stood forth bravely. Loghain was proud of them, and proud to fight to uphold them. Morrigan was able to slow The First, while Anders froze the wraiths, leaving them for Oghren and Sigrun to hack apart, while the dogs leaped at them, ripping away shreds of incorporeal flesh.

Loghain focused on the First. He was strong. He was as strong as the Hurlock Generals Loghain had faced in the streets the day of the last battle against the Archdemon: as strong as the Hurlock Vanguard they had fought on the march to Denerim. This was not a mindless killing machine. As crude and brutal as the creature was, there was a kind of intellect there: one that cut and parried like a human warrior. It would have been a hard fight, had Loghain faced him one-on-one.

But of course that was not the situation. Maude was stabbing the creature in the back, her face gleeful. There was undoubtedly some sort of disgusting poison on her blades. An almost comical expression of surprise and pain distorted the First's face, and it collapsed to its knees, weapons slipping from its nerveless fingers.

"They are too much!" the creature panted. "You must be sending me back through the Veil now, before it is too late!"

"Useless fool!" stormed the Baroness. "I'll be rid of you all! I shall send them back through the Veil, all right—and your life will power the spell!"

"No! No..." The thing screamed, as its life was sucked away. There was a moment of cold and dark and pushing, as if they were being squeezed through a tunnel too small for them. Then nausea and thirst...

And silence, but for the frogs in the swamp.

"Back in the world!" Maude announced, from a few yards to his right. "Hurray. I think."

Loghain pushed himself up and tried to swallow. It was nearly impossible to guess how much time had passed. The heavy fog that had darkened the sky was gone. The angle of the sun suggested that it was the middle of the afternoon. Perhaps they had lain here an hour. Perhaps two. They were damned lucky not to have been gnawed upon.

Maude brushed angrily at the twigs that had fallen into her hair from a whitewood tree. Morrigan wore an equally disgusted expression, and wiped something from her armor.

"How revolting!" she muttered.

Anders blew out a breath, and swayed up. The dwarves looked very uncomfortable.

Sigrun said, "I think I'm going to throw up, but I really don't want to."

Maude stumbled over to her, holding out a canteen. "Have some watered brandy. It really does help."

Oghren grunted, reaching for his own canteen. "Have some unwatered brandy. It helps more."

Being four-legged, Ranger and Topaz seemed in better spirits than any of them. Ranger got up and shook himself, as if from a long and pleasant nap. Topaz was a little more uncertain, and sniffed the air suspiciously.

Very carefully, Loghain got his feet under him and rose. He felt a bit light-headed, but suspected that it could have been worse.

Anders asked, "Anybody hurt?"

Grunts and sighs. The First was dead on the ground, as were the other darkspawn they had killed in the Fade. Loghain looked around at his Wardens. Everyone seemed to be essentially all right, and no parts were missing. One of them was still down…

Topaz growled, and Ranger trotted over to sniff where she was sniffing. Maude stared, and whispered, "Loghain!"

Kristoff's body, dead for days, was stirring. The Wardens gathered, looking at each other. Morrigan and Anders readied their spells.

Loghain expected an attack by one of the living dead, when the corpse turned around, looked at them, and spoke. It was Kristoff's face and voice, but Kristoff himself had been gone, Loghain guessed, for several days. Decay had set in, and the eyes were sunk into the head and gleaming with unearthly light.

"Not looking so good there, Kristoff," grunted Oghren, his axe at the ready.

"I am not Kristoff," the being said. "Do not call me by his name. I am Justice. The demon has escaped and is nearby. It must be destroyed."

"Justice?" breathed Maude. "You came through the Veil with us?"

"Yes...it would seem so. But not alone. The demon will be more powerful than ever in your world. It must be destroyed before it can do more harm."

"Absolutely!" Maude agreed. "Let's go get it!"

It seemed a sound plan, and they had not far to go. By the ruins of the manor, the Baroness was waiting for them: very Orlesian, very superior, very scornful of the world into which she had thrust herself. Then she transformed.

Loghain had never seen a Pride Demon, and was impressed. It was nearly as big as that armored ogre in the Knotwood Hills. It was not armored, however, and went down under a blistering attack. Kristoff—or Justice—threw himself into the fight with abandon. It was astonishing how well an animated corpse could wield a mace.

"Do you see this sort of thing a lot?" Sigrun yelled at Maude.

"All the time!" Maude shouted back. "And worse!"

When dead, demons tended to deliquesce, dissolving into the earth. This one smelled really bad, and the stink was made worse by the presence of Kristoff/Justice. Loghain covered his face with his hand, and walked away a few steps. Maude wrinkled her nose, but still dove in to see if there was treasure to be found.

"Too bad!" she complained. "That transformation destroyed her jewelry. I liked that tiara."

"You already have a tiara, Maude," Loghain pointed out.

"So? Hers was smaller and more low-key than mine. It would have been suitable for less formal occasions. Or Morrigan might have liked it. Wouldn't you like a tiara, Morrigan?"

"What's a tiara?" Sigrun asked.

"The little crown she was wearing."

"Can regular people wear those?" Sigrun asked, intrigued. "Or do you have to be noble?"

Maude paused, blinking. "I wear a tiara whenever I like, and I'm not technically a noble anymore…" Then she beamed. "I think it's more a matter of 'if you've got one, wear it!' More a function of money than class. If you're a woman. Men don't wear tiaras."

"—Some magisters do!" Anders corrected her. "And the Black Divine in Minrathous wears one. It's even called 'The Divine Tiara.'"

Maude stared at him briefly. "I think that says everything that needs to be said on the subject. Really."

Morrigan frowned. "I do not wish to see you wearing a tiara. That absurd cowl of yours is quite bad enough!"

Not surprisingly, the death of the demon freed up hidden caches of magnificent loot. Maude found a long piece of ancient dragonbone, and was already planning to show it to Master Wade. While the rest of the party pottered about scavenging and chattering, Justice sought Loghain's opinion about his proper course of action.

"You are of this world, and seem to be of good character—"

Smiles, coughs, and chuckles from his fellow Wardens. Maude patted his arm comfortingly, but she was smiling too. Topaz gazed up at Loghain, wagging her tail.

"-I find myself something at a loss," Justice continued, oblivious. "I am unfamiliar with this place. Ought I to stay and avenge the former resident of this body?"

Loghain, surprised at such a question, did not answer immediately. From the corner of his eye, he could see Morrigan swelling with wrath and suspicion.

"Uh, Justice?" Maude said softly. "It would be very wrong and selfish for us to make you stay here when you really belong in the Fade."

"Your generosity is commendable. However, I find this world most interesting. There is much of beauty here."

"You're absolutely right!" Maude agreed. "Absolutely. It's important to make the most of your surroundings, wherever they are. But you're a spirit of Justice, right? You wouldn't want to commit an injustice here, anymore than you would in the Fade. Would you?"

"Certainly not," Justice assured her seriously, his voice mild and resonant. "It would go against my nature."

"Well," Maude said, a very kind and concerned expression on her face. "If you were to remain in Kristoff's body, it would be a terrible experience for Kristoff's wife, Aura, who is expected to arrive any day now. She might even have arrived at Vigil's Keep as we speak! It's bad enough that we'll have to tell her her husband is dead. She has a right to expect his ashes so she can mourn him properly. If you're…occupying…his body, she won't be able to do that, and that will be so very unfair to her."

"Aura?" Justice said. The decaying face grew tender. "I have some share in this man's memories. He loved Aura greatly. And she loved him. I would not wish to cause her pain."

"Well, then," Maude urged, "we really need to send you back to the Fade. You'll have such interesting stories to share with the other spirits. We can have the appropriate funeral rites for Kristoff, and Aura will be sad, but she won't be frightened or horrified."

"An excellent plan," Morrigan supported her. "It would be best to return you immediately. It will be tiring for Anders and me, but it can be done. Sending a spirit into the Fade is not nearly as difficult as escaping oneself!"

Anders made a face. "It's going to take all my lyrium, you know."

Morrigan hissed in his ear. "'Twould be well spent! I do not propose to travel with a rotting corpse. We shall send this spirit back, and quickly—lest he decide to find a younger, fresher host to occupy. I did not become a Grey Warden to avoid possession by Flemeth, just to be possessed by a knight-errant of the Fade! Nor do I intend the same for you!"

Loghain pondered the advantages and disadvantages of keeping a spirit of Justice to fight for the Grey Wardens. Justice seemed a good sort…or at least a very benevolent sort of spirit, with sound views about Orlesian noblewomen. Nonetheless, his presence made Loghain very uncomfortable. The longer he was with them, the more likely it was that he would hear stories about Loghain's lapses, and then he would probably nag at him to make restitution. It would be worse than living with Wynne. Spirits and demons were attracted to mages: everyone knew that. Morrigan was wary, but Anders might even be persuaded to give this spirit house-room, as it were, and then what would come of it?

"Do it," Loghain ordered. "Now."

Morrigan gestured the non-mages out of the way, and a ritual soon began. Anders' cherished pouch of lyrium was dipped into again and again. Blue light spun and refracted, and suddenly there was a whoosh! as if a giant's breath had been forcefully expelled. Kristoff's body went limp. Morrigan sat down on a fallen log, and Anders sat at her feet and leaned his head back into her lap.

He remarked, "I don't suppose you have any brandy left, Oghren…"

"That I do," the dwarf said, passing his flask to the mage.

"Well, it is done," Morrigan said, sounding tired, "and well done." She grimaced at Oghren's flask, but took a drink all the same.

"I would estimate the cost at around three sovereigns worth of lyrium," Anders complained. "Am I going to be reimbursed by the Grey Wardens?"

Loghain scowled, but Maude bounced to her feet. "Of course! It's only fair. Ooo! I sound like Justice! No, I don't think I'm possessed…"

Kristoff's body was divested of arms, armor and personal possession. Maude put everything in neat piles, lingering over some keepsakes.

"I suppose the widow has first dibs. I really am being awfully nice today. Look at that! That's a very fine bit of goldsmithing. The sentimental value would be even greater, I suppose. I think he's ready to face the Maker now..."

Sigrun had not seen bodies cremated before, and found it very disturbing. Oghren took her for a short walk and a long drink. The girl turned her back on the ceremony, which was fairly rude, but apparently she found the entire thing creepily like a nug roast… which was exactly what she loudly whispered to Oghren.

A container for the ashes turned out to be something of a problem.

"I am not giving up my new tea jar!" Maude insisted. "It's mine! It's silver! Anora never gave back my old one."

"Of course she didn't!" Loghain said, exasperated. "It had Cailan in it. You weren't actually going to put tea in it again, were you?"

She regarded him blankly. "Why not? I would have rinsed it out first."

Alas, there proved to be nothing more appropriate for holding Kristoff's earthly remains than that same jar. Maude grumpily dumped out her precious Highever Honeygrass onto the marshy earth, and scowled at them all.

"You'll be sorry when you have to put up with me in the morning when I haven't had my tea..."

Their adventures in the Fade had been hard on them all. They staggered back to camp, gave their guardsmen the news in brief, ate a truly enormous amount of lamb-and-pea stew, and turned in early. Loghain was too tired to be troubled by dreams, at least consciously. It was good to have a cuddle on the big, oversized cot with Maude, with their dogs crowding into the tent with them. No more than a cuddle, alas, since they fell asleep almost immediately.

They scouted briefly the next day. As far as they could tell, the Blackmarsh was genuinely purged of the evil that had burdened it for so long. The fog had dissipated. While the plant life was still scrubby and sparse, there was hope that it would revive, in time.

"I'd still be very careful about rebuilding that manor house," Anders remarked. "The Pride Demon may be gone, but all the nastiness tends to linger."

"'Tis true," Morrigan agreed, very decidedly. "The ruins should be razed and the land be used for nothing more than pasturing sheep. Anyone who is foolish enough to want to live on that spot is likely to see something very nasty indeed. And not just in the woodshed!"

Maude laughed. "We'll talk to Delilah about it. Maybe she can send some settlers out here. There are plenty of refugees looking for land, and I think this may well be the safest place in Amaranthine now, at least as far as the darkspawn are concerned. If they don't want to try to rebuild the village, they could go farther north around that little harbor. "

"I'll talk to Nathaniel when he returns from Denerim," Loghain said, thinking it over. "We're likely to see him first."

Loghain was right. They loaded the wagon, and made their way back to the Pilgrim's Path. By the time they reached the crossroads, they found Nathaniel Howe, and a small band of horsemen waiting for them.

"Something's wrong in the Wending Wood," Nathaniel told Loghain, grim as ever. "We managed to get the caravan to Denerim with no one killed, but only just. I know this sounds mad, but we were attacked by trees—"

"I believe you, Nathaniel," Maude assured him. "I've been attacked by trees myself. Though that was in the Brecilian Forest."

He glared at her. Then he turned to Loghain again. "There were even more trees on the way back, and a demented elf who demanded the return of her sister! One of the scouts was badly wounded, but found a mass grave before he was chased by a pack of wolves. It might be the Dalish, but this doesn't feel like them. We also found some dead bandits. I remember that you said that you had sensed something in the Wending Wood."

"Not darkspawn," Loghain said, shaking his head, "but that's not to say there aren't any. There are certainly plenty of places to hide in the Wending Woods..."

Nathaniel agreed immediately. "Among them a very large abandoned silverite mine. I can show you on the map where we were attacked, and most of those attacks, both going and coming, were fairly close to that mine."

Maude gave Loghain a quick, excited glance. What was it that The Lost had said about the Architect?

"He hides himself in the old mines..."

Amaranthine abounded in mineral wealth. There were dozens of mines in the arling, both large and small. But a large silverite mine, and ill-defined attacks. The Blackmarsh had been something of a wash, where the darkspawn were concerned, but this? The Architect might indeed be up to something...

"Where is that caravan of yours?" he asked brusquely.

"About an hour behind. As soon as we were well out of the Woods, I rode ahead to try to catch you before you could return to the Vigil."

"Good. We'll go on to that mine of yours now, and we'll want all the men you can spare, if my guess is right. At least," he cast a doubtful glance over his people, "we'll camp on the edge of the Wending Wood, and go in at first light tomorrow. "

"Drake's Fall!" Maude sat up and shouted. Loghain open his eyes to darkness. The dogs stirred and whined, sensing her mood.

"It's the bloody middle of the night, Maude," he grumbled. "Go back to sleep."

"No! Loghain! I just realized where the Mother is! She's at Drake's Fall! I know it!"

"Maude, put some clothes on, if you're going to wake the camp!" Loghain warned her.

There were groans and complaints from the tents nearby, as Maude slid off the cot and struck a light, digging through Loghain's maps.

"Ha! Here's Amaranthine! Look at this!" She slipped into one of his shirts, and spread the map out on the end of the cot. She grinned at him, tapping her finger on the northwest of the arling of Amaranthine. There was no help for it, so he pushed himself up on his elbows, squinting at the parchment.

"Maude, do be quiet!" Morrigan protested, her voice muffled by sleepiness and two tents between them.

Maude was undaunted. "Come and see this, Morrigan! Avernus told us how to find The Mother, though we didn't know it at the time!"

A silence from that quarter, and then footsteps. Loghain grabbed up his breeches and slid into them just before Morrigan threw open the tent flap and made herself at home.

Maude was ecstatic. "Drake's Fall! Don't you remember? Avernus told us about two entrances to the Deep Roads that he knew of in Amaranthine. One of them was in the Knotwood Hills. I was confused by the entrance to Vigil's Keep and didn't think about other possibilities, but I believe that Avernus—and the other Wardens—didn't know about what lay under Vigil's Keep. The entrance there is indirect, after all—probably really a darkspawn tunnel connecting the dungeons and the Deep Roads. There was the other, proper, entrance: the one that he knew about; the one that the Wardens used!"

Morrigan nodded, almost allowing herself to look excited. "'There is also an entrance below the dungeons of an old Tevinter fortress, Drake's Fall. We used that for our own Wardens' Callings.' I remember now." She snorted a laugh. "I remember also that you were indignant about it, as Arl Howe intended to make you live there after you married his son—but not the laconic one traveling with us, apparently."

"No—he wanted me to marry poor old Tommy." Maude shook her head dolefully. "It was never going to happen, but at the time I was rather flattered to be offered a castle as part of the settlement. Now, not so much. Think about the name," she looked at her companions expectantly. Anders staggered in.

"What's going on? Is it a party?"

"Yes, Anders," Maude declared. "It's a party—with darkspawn! Listen to this! I know where The Mother is! Back in the old dragon-hunting days, Drake's Fall was one of the prime spots. People came from all over to loot the bones from the dragons and drakes that went there to die."

Loghain was awake now, frowning over the map. "The Lost spoke of a dragon. The site is remote. Perhaps a dragon is indeed living there? Possible, I suppose." He tried to remember what else Avernus had said of the place. There was no longer a Bannorn of Drake's Fall. The title had been extinct before the Rebellion.

Maude gazed at him expectantly. "We should go there right away! We should give The Mother the sort of surprises she enjoys giving us!"

"You're right," Loghain finally agreed. "As soon as we check out this mine, we'll head north, and see if your dower house is currently occupied."

Notes: Thanks to my reviewers: Phygmalion, Eva Galana, Josie Lange, Shakespira, Carrington, Duel Soul, mille libri, Enaid Aderyn, Guile, Aoi24, sapphiretoes, Fastforwarmotion, Alpha Cucumber, callalili, Grannaah, Lehni, Jenna53, butterflygrrl, JackOfBladesX, mutive, Ereneviana, Piceron, Zute, Gene Dark, and Lord of Murder.

Yes, I stole a bit from Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, one of my favorite books. I know that Maude would like Flora Poste.

Sorry for the delay in posting. Out-of-town guests and a family wedding have occupied a great deal of my time for the past few weeks. Also, I sold another story, though this one won't be published until next year.